Why is the Greatest Question of All
by Java Trinomial
Summary: A kinder, gentler Java-bean. On the human race and belief systems, etc. Reviews gooooood!
1. Where, When, Who, Which

Who is Light?  
Some personify Light, others do not  
What is Light?  
A stream of photons  
Where is Light?  
Wherever you can see more than darkness, light is certainly there  
When is Light?  
Since the Big Bang, unto the end  
Why is Light?  
...  
...I don't know...  
Kashira? Kashira?  
(Gozonji kashira?)  
  
  
Curiosity is a gift, not a curse.  
How do I know?  
-wink- It's a secret!  
  
Humanity is so much greater because we question everything.  
Look at our improvement of life,  
look at those we feed, and clothe  
how many more are in the world  
and see we are working at it, we really are.  
  
(And yes, I do see the problems too.  
Bombs, nukes, war, chemical weaponry.  
It's all a question of increased power.  
A child can only use tiny fists.  
An adult can uses swords.)  
  
We are going from youth to adolescence.  
So we grow in collective mind and body  
more power  
more possibilities for pain and joy  
slowly learning,  
seemingly ever-so-slowly  
but working still.  
  
We are human.  
That's why there is pain  
and hurt and suffering.  
Humanity is not perfect, so  
we will make failings and mistakes  
people will die and hurt and suffer.  
And slowly, our race learns  
  
(I believe I believe I believe I believe!)  
  
Children cannot comprehend.  
So, children need a parent,  
someone to watch over them,  
to make rules for them  
to be there.  
  
We are becoming an adult.  
Why does an adult need someone   
to rule over one like a despot?  
We do not need a dictator  
(there were good dictators, most good parents are)  
when we become adults.  
  
We need advice, though.  
We require someone to guide us  
to suggest and help,  
but who knows we must do it by ourselves.  
We need a helping hand.  
  
Why a jealous God?  
Isn't jealousy childish?  
Are we not becoming adults?  
  
What we need,  
is someone to believe  
just like Carrot (gods bless his soul)  
that we really are good chaps under it all  
so we can believe it  
make it a self-fufilling prophecy.  
  
Humanity is not evil.  
Humanity is not good.  
Humanity is not perfect.  
Those three explain it all.  
  
Actions can be good and evil.  
Someday we will agree on boundaries.  
on what is good and what is bad  
perhaps based on the Golden Rule  
Do you think?  
  
(I must say I reject fully Moral Relativism. It's utter stupidity, in my opinion. We can do so much better.)  
  
The Bible is a pretty storybook.  
No, I'm wrong.  
The Bible is a beautiful, but flawed, work.  
Translations have done it's work on it.  
It is no longer the same exact work.  
Do you know, incidentally,  
that the Bible does not say,  
"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live"?  
It actually says,  
"Thou shalt not suffer a poisoner to live."  
  
And the Bible has much wisdom.  
I fully agree.  
  
But it is wrong  
to say it is The Book  
and holy above all else  
and expect others to accept  
to convert or be damned  
  
(because that's what it is in the end, isn't it?  
Harvestboy, isn't it?  
All the people of Africa and Asia  
and the Native Americans  
and Celts and Pacific Islander  
they never got told about God or Jesus  
so all the generations of a thousand years  
before their contact with Western Civilization  
are damned to the lake of lava.  
You say that God said, in essence, "Too bad."  
Neh?)  
  
It is wrong to say it of any book.  
Koran or Bible or Torah or The Book of Latter-Day Saints   
"Follow me and me alone,  
or you're toast."  
  
Not that I think it should be outlawed.  
As much as I despise their methods,  
they have the right to say what they want  
as do I, luckily,  
and everyone around us.  
We can debate and argue  
we can rant and flame  
ignore and listen  
because that's what's so great about freedom.  
We can say it.  
  
~~~~~  
  
So I believe.  
Here I witness.  
Believe in yourself.  
sekai wo kaeru!  
  
^_~  
Signing off,  
  
Java Trinomial  
Chika da Chaos  
Anshi e Puchuu  
Otaku Extrodinare 


	2. Adolescence Rush remix

I don't hurt as much anymore, is what I remember.  
  
It used to really hurt  
not being with Jesus and God  
because they were so much in my life.  
  
I used to talk a lot to Jesus, you know.  
When I was a child.  
Tell him how my day was  
and who I was going to see  
occasionally what I was doing that particular day.  
(I also used to do this with Orion, though.  
Stand outside the house on a cool fall night  
and talk to my archer.)  
He was so nice, in many ways.  
He didn't yell at me, didn't put me down.  
He listened and slowly through talking I learned about myself.  
  
So when the bitterness shattered  
and logic told me, unwillingly  
(I didn't want to...)  
that the only way for me to accept myself  
was to understand the hurt  
and comprehend that I could not anymore  
believe in the same God I used to  
because it was false to myself.  
  
I believe  
still, however,  
in what I always believed in.  
  
Life as the reason for life.  
Humanity's possibilities.  
The healing powers of love.  
Beauty in everything,  
(especially in my messy room...hee.)  
  
Why do I believe in these things?  
Why does anyone believe in something?  
  
Sakura-san said,  
"My God doesn't love me.  
Which is fine with me, really. "  
And that is something of the thing I have now.  
I believe there is no God,  
because I cannot see him,  
and there is an easier explanation  
that I can accept.  
  
It's a good thing to know you are loved unconditionally.  
(What kind of unconditional love damns us all?)  
And I can accept that, slowly I am able to.  
I slowly understand that people need that.  
And...I guess that is okay.  
  
It's a lie to say I don't want that love.  
But it's a lie to say I could believe in it again.  
It would be false to my own self.  
And as our dear Polonius said,  
"To thine own self be true."  
  
~~~~~  
  
I wanted to say something now, however.  
  
I don't have a bible with me,  
so I may not be right.  
  
Ignore, for a moment, that annoying Paul  
(mysogynist twerp!)  
and Acts and everything.  
I only use Jesus's words  
(badly translated as they are...)  
for an idea.  
  
What if Jesus, when he said,   
"Only through me shall they enter the Kingdom of Heaven,"  
meant it in a symbolic view?  
  
Jesus is Mercy and Love and Forgiveness.  
What if, perchance, he really meant,  
"Only through Mercy and Love and Forgiveness shall they enter the Kingdom of Heaven"?  
  
I'm sure that this is not the first time this has been brought up.  
But wasn't Jesus a man of parables?  
Why is everything written so literally.  
Give the heathens a chance, now.  
  
In the last book of Narnia  
a follower of Tash, the devil  
ends up in Heaven  
And when he questioned Aslan  
how he came to this place  
Aslan said,  
"Whatever good you did in Tash's name,  
I took to myself."  
  
I'd appreciate a few reviews on that.  
  
~~~~~  
  
I grow up, slowly.  
And learn.  
The biggest thing, though, that I see  
that oftentimes screws us all up  
is the simplest thing.  
  
A child, when growing up,  
learns about anger.  
Anger can, in certain instances, be good.  
It's good to be angry about injustice  
and things that wrong us and that can be changed.  
  
But almost never  
is it productive to hate.  
Note the period there.  
Even children know that.  
Hate causes more hurting than healing  
  
And anger is a very dangerous thing.  
Righteous anger is an incredibly dangerous thing.  
You think you're right?  
Maybe you are.  
But maybe you're wrong.  
And as Auntie-Mama said,   
"get more bees with honey."  
Hitler thought he was right.  
See what happened?  
  
Ghandi believed he was right.  
So did MLK Jr.  
But they did not hate - they loved.  
And see how much more they accomplished?  
  
Children can see this,  
if they are wise.  
Anyone can see it,  
if they are wise.  
  
~~~~~  
  
berenwasteland, I LOVE YOU!!  
*wink* And K2, as always, and NYB, you're okay...I guess...^_~ Hey, the non-christian thing is a good thing.  
I wonder why no one reviews, though. Is it that a certain someone finds his position untenable in front of a little bit of truth and honesty? Kashira, kashira!  
  
(And, by the way, if ANYONE can tell me what anime I've been quoting from, you get a cookie. Really!)  
  
(Puchuu!)  
  
Signing off,  
Java-chan 


	3. hikari no yami, The Darkness of Light

~A short chapter, as I am much tired.~  
  
To save a life.  
I saved my boyfriend's life.  
I loved him so much, he couldn't,  
wouldn't,  
kill himself...  
I hope that counts as saving a life.  
  
To believe in ourselves?  
To believe we can help ourselves up,  
to believe that we can make it,  
to believe we can forgive each other  
and love each other, or accept each other  
to believe that we can change the world?  
  
Maybe that is arrogant.  
I don't really understand how,  
for my trusty dictionary is on lease to a friend.  
  
Sister Theresa was not arrogant,  
but she believed in people, and in God,  
and changed a little part of the world.  
She loved, and respected, and believed in  
our Hindu and Muslim sistren.  
I love her.  
If I believed in an afterlife,  
she would be in Heaven with the angels,  
smiling down on all of us.  
  
~~~~~  
  
To say no one is good, and no one is "good enough"...  
I can pick out plenty of people,  
whose goodness and kindness outway (in my eyes) that which they have done wrong.  
Like my Auntie-Mama and Uncle Tom, who took me in,  
and love me and heal me.  
Mother Theresa, as well.  
Jay-chan. Amanda-kuns. Allison-chan.  
Perhaps I am only an unworthy human,  
so my voice does not count.  
But I believe it says something.  
  
(Huh. So a vicious child murderer who accepts Christ is better than a Muslim Mother Theresa, who prays to God as well...)  
  
Spiritually, I feel as alive as I have ever been.  
I talk to the spirits - did you know?  
Ask my tarot cards what they're saying.  
Sometimes they answer with riddles and paradoxes,  
and sometimes they are as clear  
as the dueling bells.  
Perhaps God speaks to me  
through the tarot.  
  
(Logic gave you the computer you're typing on, the clothes on your back, and the ability to calculate a^n+b^n cannot equal any c^n where n is greater than 2. Okay, maybe that one's not as cool...)  
  
The world exists.  
Life exists.  
I can feel beauty everywhere  
see it and hear it.  
The lilacs' breath gives me new life.  
That is what I feel and hear.  
That is what my spirituality is.  
  
Perhaps...  
if we only believed we had this life only...  
we would be more interested  
in giving the world  
a new lease.  
Stop world hunger,  
make world peace  
and all those cliches  
which can be truer than truth.  
  
Humans are not good.  
Humans are not bad.  
Humans are not perfect.  
From those three ideas  
we could work and try  
to save our children.  
  
To save a life.  
  
Believe in the possibilities...  
  
~~~~~  
A/N: Okay. NYB, you kick ass. Better? ^_~  
And I watched the SUBBED version of SM. DiC suuuux.  
I've referenced...ah, four anime's as of yet. Guess 'em all, and a round of cookies! Possibly hash brownies for those 18+. It Ain't Nobody's Business if I Do.  
K2, yar! beren, yar!   
  
By the way, reviews on everything is encouraged. Please, tell me whether what I'm proposing sounds okay, or bad, or how I can improve on it. Constructive criticism is good (please put in at least one compliment before tearing it apart, though...) and flames will be used to toast marshmellows. Here, anyone want one? *offers* 


	4. End of the World

Can human beings do good deeds  
without believing in a God?  
  
Well, what is a selfish way of doing good?  
I can admit, perhaps  
that doing good only to look good  
can be counted as hypocritical.  
  
But,  
(but but but!)  
doing good things  
out of a genuine love  
out of caring for another's welfare  
that cannot be selfish.  
  
I admit, most people are in between.  
A bit of the first is often mixed with a load of the second.  
But pureness of the latter is entirely possible.  
  
And, sometimes, is it required  
to only have completely unselfish works?  
Everyone's a little hypocritical.  
May be miniscule, may be more  
but as I said,  
We are not perfect.  
Even with that miniscule part  
it still helps another person.  
Not "ends justify means"  
not "motive is all"  
but a little bit in between.  
  
I remember Christians doing things to look good.  
I remember Christians with kind words and loving hearts.  
And I remember the only girl  
who took time out to help me  
out of a whole Catholic school  
unselfishly counseling me  
saving my own life.  
  
Aria was an atheist.  
But she cared without selfishness.  
And thus, I believe.  
  
I've donated my lunch money to the UNICEF fund,  
sneaking in quietly so no one would hear or see.  
then hiding in the library during lunch  
(so I wouldn't get ravenously hungry.)  
  
I hid in my room and prayed  
so it would be only me and God  
instead of going 'round the flagpole.  
  
And, as an act of slightly selfish belief,  
I bet God that if our basketball team could only get to the Western Maine championships,  
the team which won 3 games in 3 years.  
I'd plop five dollars in the Salvation Army bin  
(a huge amount for a teen with a cash flow of $1 a week)  
  
We did.  
And I stuck it in,  
while no one was looking.  
  
I don't say I'm perfect.  
But we don't need to be perfect  
to make this world a better place  
  
A riddle...  
If a Christian gives, knowing it strengthens his place in Heaven  
If an Atheist gives, not expecting anything in return but another human bettered.  
Which is the better for the giving?  
Are they equal? Or unequal?  
I'd like your opinion - I really don't know myself.  
  
Hmmm...  
  
~~~~~  
  
If you have reviewed or written here  
I probably know your beliefs.  
And I have no problem with you stating them.  
But I have one sane request.  
Respect me and my friends, and everyone here.  
  
To the Atheists/Agnostics/Non-Christians:  
  
If they have God, it is fine with me.  
If they are comfortable with their beliefs, let them live them.  
If they are annoying, talk about how it angers you, fine.  
But let us try,  
attempt at least,  
to not attack them.  
Offer suggestions, point out problems, sure.  
Tell your side of the story, good.  
But...  
I leave it to your judgement whether or not to listen to them.  
  
To the Christians:  
  
If you believe in God, I can accept it.  
If you pray to God for me...  
Well, I'd prefer if you didn't pray only  
to accept your religion.  
For my problems, sure.  
I guess, slowly, I can accept it.  
But.  
(but but but!)  
I have a religion  
(or a philosophy...Buddhism is called a religion, why can't mine be?)  
It is called Secular Humanism.  
Information on my side can be found in these pages,  
or at http://religioustolerance.org/humanism.htm  
I like my religion.  
I believe very deeply in it.  
I am not really interested in changing my beliefs.  
Neither are many other of my kind.  
So, ranting and raving about my lack of spirituality  
and telling me that I'm going to hell  
is to change my belief system  
asit is possible to teach a cat quantum physics.  
Talking sanely and calmly  
might work better,  
but probably will result  
in a dialogue, not a conversion.  
Mkay?  
  
~~~~~  
  
On good behavior:  
  
I believe...  
that a man can do good work  
be full of mercy, forgiveness, and love  
be a great person,  
go home,  
and be whipped with a cat'o'nine'tails  
by his wife, steady girlfriend or boyfriend or civil unionmate  
then have lotsa kinky sex  
and still be a good person.  
  
Sexual immorality is overrated.  
True, some murderers do horrible things  
and pedophilia is BAD  
and so is stuff without a consenting adult  
but between consenting adults  
and without death  
you can do whatever you want.  
  
And still be a good person.  
  
~~~~~  
  
I think I know what the difference is.  
Perhaps.  
It's all in the view of things...  
  
If the world is inherently evil  
then everything in the world  
is inherently evil  
and only abstaining  
from the material world  
will bring us to "heaven."  
  
But if the world is all we have...  
then we must work  
to make this a heaven on earth  
for all creatures.  
  
Mkay? 


	5. Author's Note on Reviews

Useless quote of the moment:  
  
"Obliterate! Exterminate! Lord Ilpalazzo told me so-o-o! Genocide! Manga Authorcide! An order of homicide to go! You're just a manga artist, discharging evil into society! How dare you live in a place with a roof, you user of ink!!"  
  
~And now, to the Author's Note~  
  
For those reviewers who are not of the writer's religion (for any fic in this section), here's a little ruler on reviewing when you wanna cross the writer's views. M'kay?  
  
How NOT to write a good review:  
  
Either:  
"You're a F*(%ing atheist/evangelical Christian/Satanist. Burn motherf^%$#@, burn."  
"You're cool but you're still going to hell. Sorry."  
  
How TO write a good review:  
  
"This point here "blah blah blah" conflicts with my religion in this way, and I believe my religion is better because of this perspective."  
  
How to write an OK review:  
  
"Here's a point. And I'm gonna baka-smack you 'cause I'm tired."  
  
M'kay? ^_~ Sekai wo kaeru, I gotta go to work, expect a new chapter tomorrow. 


End file.
